Anarchy in the U.K.: Computer Networking workshops Introduction Three of these were held 1. an introduction to computer networking 2. a discussion with publishers about electronic publishing 3. a discussion about BBSes and networking among those already# using it. The themes of the workshop were good, and they were to a large extent successful; preparation was difficult, as the organisers were a collection of net people who had not had the opportunity to meet previously. In fact, only one was resident in London, compounding the difficulty in organisation. Myself, Mitzi Waltz from Extreme Books in Portland, Oregon, Matt Fuller from Fast Breeder BBS in London, Andrew Flood from the WSM in Dublin, Iain McKay from Glasgow, and Chris Hutton from Edinburgh were involved. A big thanks to all of them - particularly Mitzi - for their hard work. Very little was organised by myself beforehand, despite my suggesting the themes, and the hassles I had meant that I relied upon people stepping in to take over, which they did. Overall, it was very useful. We arrranged to meet the day before at the levitation of parliament - too vague an arrangement to work. Next time, I would choose somewhere away from the main events, and a specific time. Setting up a mailing list to coordinate workshops from afar beforehand - and starting some months before - would help. We could have compiled a list of organisers' phone numbers so that we could communicate over the period of the festival. The first two workshops occurred on the same day - too much of a rush to change over; I would choose separate days. It was valuable to have plenty of time, particularly for the first workshop, which ran over about four hours. Explaining technology cannot be done in a hurry. It is probably worth choosing a facilitator and someone to write up the workshops beforehand. I ended (semi-) facilitating each workshop and Mitzi wrote them up. I had a 2 year old child with me which added to various organisational problems (including losing a whole load of stuff the night before the first workshop); if I have to bring a child, I'd prefer to take a back seat. Different facilitators would be a good idea for each workshop. We could have involved the non-Internet BBS community more centrally (one of them should have run the third workshop), as I get the feeling they feel slightly marginalised. Also, note the problems with Spanish speakers discussed in . It would be worthwhile to run workshops in both languages, and arrange as good an interpretation as possible. At least, separate workshops could have been held in English and Spanish, with both reporting back. (We have Spunk Press material in other languages and I omitted to bring it!). The hall was not perfect. There were several exhibitions which filled the walls; people wandered in - at one point playing music. We held the last two workshops in a pub nearby. As they involved smaller numbers of people, this wasn't bad. This depends on the pub, though. Reporting on workshops would be easier if online access was available - particularly for something lasting a week or more. There's usually some kind of college nearby, and this could have been arranged. Introduction to Computer Networking workshop This attracted about 50 or 60 people. It was very informal owing to my total lack of preparation. Luckily the eight or so of us with net access were able to collaborate. After a short introduction the workshop just followed the questions of the audience. We concentrated on the positive uses of networking and practical advice rather than technical details. More information for people wanting to get connected would be useful. There were useful comments from others about the problems with the extent of information on the net - how do you know what is interesting once you are connected? We all described our different perspectives, a useful spread from Spunk Press (electronic publishing on the net), Extreme Books (anarchist BBS, catalogues and internet access), Fast Breeder (local BBS), WSM (use of the net by anarchist group). We then split into smaller groups - *very* useful and maybe worth doing earlier, and actually planning the different themes. Demonstration was tricky; we only had a portable Macintosh. It was possible with small groups. A neat offline demo of WWW set up by Jack Jansen was aborted as I lost the disks the night before. People seemed more interested in discussing the technology. A rather impressive write up of the workshop appeared in one of the daily bulletins by someone there Publishers workshop The discussion with publishers took place in the Dolphin Pub on Tuesday afternoon. A K Press from Edinburgh, and their London office, Working Press, DS4, Extreme Books, Workers Soldiarity (WSM), Scottish Anarchist and Spunk Press were present. The discussion was very useful, if rather brief owing to organisational hiccups. Stefan from Working Press made the point that, for those without net contacts, there was no feedback from Spunk Press. The idea of local user groups was discussed. We decided that a regular newsletter from Spunk Press would increase communication. Statistics on accesses to a publishers section in Spunk Press would give feedback on usage (currently WWW accesses can be monitored at 140 a day for the Spunk Press home page). One obstacle facing publishers is simply lack of time to get disks converted. Help might be needed here. WWW and graphics were discussed. This - and sound, for DS4, who carry records - had great interest. As usual, no one has the time to get into HTML and the technology. We should assist publishers once we have a handle on it. The usefulness of cross referencing within the archive was pointed out. A way of encouraging those submitting to provide this kind of information - a questionaire perhaps - would be useful. We discussed the impact of free electronic access on book and magazine sales. Mitzi and I made the point that most people don't like either reading from a screen or a pile of A4 printouts. Though Hakim Bey's TAZ is in the archive, I will go and buy it to read it properly. WWW is more pleasant to read online or print out, but larger items are unlikely to be read online. In any case, it is at least worth publishers putting their catalogues into the archive, and excerpts from publications to stimulate interest. This cropped up just before the workshop during a discussion between myself and people from Freedom, who were concerned about loss of revenue. Everyone else felt this was a negative attitude - A K Press pointed out that this could be used as a justification for closing libraries. Well, Freedom are the conservative end of the anarchist movement here.. We agreed that meeting up at the annual anarchist bookfair in September would maintain contacts, and that Spunk Press would try and arrange this. BBS and networking workshop This was attended by people from ECN (London and Berlin), BBSes in Barcelona, the WSM, Extreme Books, Spunk Press (others?). Some of the discussion was about Spunk Press. We made our commitment clear to take material in any language, and explained that all groups were autonomous in that we had no editorial policy; all information is accepted - though ephemeral information is not so appropriate. Disk space is not an issue, as we can find as much as is needed on machines on the internet; the Spunk Press archive is distributed to BBSes, and on PC disks, and the recipients can choose how much of the archive to keep. We are committed [ I think? subject to discussion ] to accepting as wide a range of anarchist material as possible (someone asked if we would take Class War - of course). Chris from ECN London was interested in technical help in getting connected; currently they have to wait for ECN Berlin to come over to London! We agreed the need for a resource to help with practical advice; also the wider distribution of anarchist contacts for people to acccess when they need advice (before and once connected to the net). A modified form of the Spunk Press contact list would help people sift out useful contacts and information. This needs some kind of non-net contact by phone or letter, and available from some address - perhaps published by A K Press? The point was made by ECN Berlin that the distribution of information in this way does not connect to activism; indeed that the use of the internet to coordinate activities, e.g. around the Chiapas rising, isn't much use when local movements are too weak to act on the information. We distinguished Spunk Press as an educational organisation with a necessarily narrow focus. ECN Berlin made the most interesting point that Internet mailing lists and newsgroups are of little use when they do not involve people who are already working together. The setting up of mailing lists around specific issues (thanks Andrew from WSM) and in geographically localised areas - e.g. for the Scottish Anarchist Federation, or over the U.K. - would address this. Essentially, I think we have become too attached to the Internet as a global entity; while useful for information retrieval, communication is better achieved over smaller distances, or over single issues. This requires more people to set up and maintain mailing lists. We can learn from the BBS world, who are necessarily slanted towards local contacts. Addition of BBSes to the anarchist net contact list (or maintenance of a separate list) would help redress this (I personally am going to dial in to more BBSes without internet contact to shed some of my Internetcentrism). Manuelo from Barcelona described the anarchist networking in Spain; two internet nodes in Madrid and Barcelona and some BBSes. ECN Berlin described their network. Ian Heavens, Spunk Press Scotland